Tony Robinson- A guy worth respect

Tony Robinson- Worst Jobs in Middle Ages

In this episode, we sure did see a lot of jobs that just totally gross the whole class out. Even though those jobs were so bad, Tony Robinson still experience them by himself. Surely, a guy worth respect.

The video first introduced the job of a squire, which is like an internship for knights. The knights often have to fight eight hours a day without any bathroom breaks, and the job of the squire is to clean up the armors of these knights. Therefore, imagine cleaning up the armors of 24 pieces that weigh almost 27 kg with full of waste of human, the image would not be very pretty. In addition, to clean up the pieces, the squire must make the materials for cleaning, which is made up of the ingredients vinegar, sand, and ammonia(which in this time period made from pee). The knights themselves do not have a great job either. They have to travel about 260 miles in 17 days, with only a little food and water, in continue rain. The archer has a pretty disgusting job as well, they not only fight in Crusades, they also have to "take away the misery of people", which in other words, to kill people that are merely going to survive. The archer not only has to kill half-dead people, but also, if they are captured, their fingers will be cut off. 

Nettles

Leech collector is probably the part that I respect Tony for doing the most. In the Middle Ages, people believed that leech would suck out the bad blood in your body and heal your sickness. People also use leech to help reconnect chopped fingers. Seeing the leech gets extended bigger and bigger on Tony's leg, let's just say it's not a pretty picture. I also found the doctor's job pretty disgusting, especially when Tony pulled out the "magic-tube" that make the medicine goes into one's body, not from the mouth route, but the other route, just because the people believed that the medicine would work from the normal route, they thought the medicine would have dissolved in one's body without having an effect on them. The way they used to heal a wart is to scrape a little bit of the blood of an eel on the wart, and buried the eel into the ground; when the eel decomposed in the ground, the wart should be cured as well. That to me is just fascinating. They also tie warms on one's neck to cure one's sore throat. I can kind of imagine how disgusting would the picture of that be like. They also used the pointy plants, nettles, to rub it on the hurting joints, so that the hurting joint's blood would go through and release the pain.

 Cool device to break stones into pieces.

When it comes of building a cathedral in the Middle Ages, things just get even more worse. It seems like building a building in the modern period is easy, because people invented all those convenient machines to help works done efficiently. However, most works in building a cathedral in Middle Ages were done by hands. Though, I think the device that they invented to break stones into pieces was truly fascinating. They used the concept of pressure to let the device push open the rocks. Making the lime powder is also an exhausting job to do. The worker not also has to watch the burner to burn for 48 hours non-stop, the lime burnt and form carbon monoxide, which is a gas that is deadly. In addition, when cooling the lime down, things will pop out, which could have caused the worker blind because they do not have eyes protection back then. Last but not least, a treadmill worker is a pretty risky job during the Middle Ages. These treadmills will give power to lift up stuff to the tall cathedrals. The risky thing for this job is that when the axle started to loose, in a few seconds, the mill will fall from some scores high, and the people will be killed, so in the Middle Ages, they put blind people into the mills so they would not be scared of heights. 

Egg yolk? Na-ah... You can't imagine. 

Lastly, the disgusting job.... How do you make ammonia in the Middle Ages? As I mentioned earlier, the only source they could get ammonia from is human waste. But, why is Tony stepping on it, well, he is using it so that he could make the wool tightly tie up together. (and... yeah... I think I know what you are thinking...)

 Treadmills= Suicidal

Of all of these worst jobs in the Middle Ages, personally, I have to say, probably powering up the treadmill has to be the worst for me. First, I am scared to heights, so definitely, I would not go into the mills that is couple scores high and empty on the bottom. I mean, that just sounds like I am committing suicide. Second, the equipment itself is not safe. People can die instantly from this. When they are in these mills, the mills could loosen, and when one noticed that the mills are loosen, they would not be able to get out of the mill before the mill started to fall. With the height that the mill is setting up in, and the gravity that pulls the mills that is not tight to the axles, when the mill hits the ground, the people in the mill die without a doubt. Again, that fact just sounds like going into these mills is committing suicide. Third, walking in these mills must be an exhausting job, because when I think about how much power that the mills could provide, enough to hold a car in the air, I can imagine how much walking that a person has to put into the mills to lift things up. To me, walking in these treadmills is probably the worst job of all listed above.

If I were to pick one of these worst jobs for survival, I would rather step on human waste to tighten these wools. I think that is the least worse jobs in the list, because the worst thing about this job is just the disgusting part that people have to step in urine for couple hours. Simply disregard the disgusting part of the job, think out it as just dyed yellow water, the job is not that bad as any of those worst jobs in the list. Although during this job, people may get diseases, since the urine is still unclean, but if I do a good job at washing up after the job, I guess the job would not harm me too much. Therefore, disregard those factors that are bad about the job, and think alternative ways to make it look not as bad, then I would rather step into urine than any other worst jobs in the list.